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Title: Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts
Augustan Reprint Society Publication No. 45, 1954
Author: John Robert Scott
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Language: English
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 JOHN ROBERT SCOTT
Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts

With an Introduction by
Roy Harvey Pearce

Publication Number 45

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1954

GENERAL EDITORS
RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan
RALPH COHEN, University of California, Los Angeles
VINTON A. DEARING, University of California, Los Angeles
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, Clark Memorial Library

ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan

ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY , State College of Washington
BENJAMIN BOYCE, Duke University
LOUIS BREDVOLD, University of Michigan
 JOHN BUTT, King's College, University of Durham
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
LOUIS A. LANDA, Princeton University
SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, University of Texas
JAMES SUTHERLAND, University College, London
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
EDNA C. DAVIS, Clark Memorial Library
 INTRODUCTION

Scott's "Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts" embodies what we can
now see as a final development in his century's deep concern to understand why
what it so often admitted was the greatest art had somehow not been
forthcoming in what it as often claimed was the greatest century. The
"Dissertation" is in no way an original work; rather—and this is its primary
value for us—its author takes a belief which his culture has given him and, like
others before him, tries to clarify one of its implications. The belief is in the idea
of a universal progress marred, if it in the end can be said to be marred, only by
an esthetic primitivism; the implication is that that esthetic primitivism can be
not only comprehended but surmounted. Scott accepts the century's
commonplace that art of power and significance has been necessarily produced
only in societies markedly simpler than his own; and he accepts too the fact (for
such it was when men believed in it and judged according to the principles
generated by it) that in all forms of culture excepting art, his own richly complex
society has produced something far surpassing anything produced in the
"simpler" society of classical Greece or of the Italian Renaissance. Scott's
uniqueness is that, unlike those of his predecessors who had worked with the
same belief, he does not try to establish an historical rationale for this status quo.
He goes so far as to envisage—perhaps it would be truer to his state of mind to
say posit—an enlightened modern society which will at once remain what it is
and yet so change itself as to make possible the production of major art.
The main interest for us in the "Dissertation," then, lies in Scott's notions of the
kind of society needed to produce major art, and beyond that, in what is entailed
in holding fast to that notion, developing it into a doctrine, and even hoping to
make it a reality in his own time. He outlines the doctrine in great detail, simply
by describing what he takes to be the sociocultural situation of the classical
Greek artist (and incidentally, that of the artist of the Italian Renaissance). He
chooses to write almost entirely of the fine arts (for him in this case, sculpture),
although he conceives, as the student of his age would expect him to, that what
holds for the fine arts will also hold for poetry. In the immediacy of appeal of
sculpture, he finds a quality which, when its working and expression are
analysed, will let him see just how the artist and his work have been ideally
related to the society in which they have flourished.
Scott's description of the artist and his place in Greek society is one which, in
general, is familiar to students of eighteenth-century critical theory. Equally
familiar is his concern to establish the fact that, as he puts it, "the connate temper
of the times" made possible the production of great art. He sees Greek art as
being authentically marked by the "rich raciness of the native soil." And he sees
Greek society as in all departments making the work of the artist possible. In
small, free, uncentralized states; in states where art has a public, memorial
function; in states where, because so many games and rituals are performed
naked, the artist is always directly and overwhelmingly aware of the possibility
of beauty in the human body—in such states, owing to such "natural causes," art
must necessarily flourish. Above all, art is of the people and their artists as they
form a vital community; it is not borrowed; it is fresh and original. Finally, such
a cultural situation, and therefore such an art, is found obviously to be lacking in
his own time.
Now this argument, carried up to this point, had been more or less held to by
many critics and literary theorists before Scott. [1] True enough, they had mainly
concerned themselves with poetry; yet they found the source of major poetry to
be ultimately in a nakedness of language—made possible by what was taken to
be the simplicity, spontaneity, and cohesion of Greek life—comparable to Scott's
notion of nakedness of body. They differ from Scott in this: that almost
uniformly, so far as my reading goes, all had been willing to admit that there was
absolutely no hope for comparable artistic achievement in their own time; that
such art could be produced only in simpler, earlier societies than their own; that,
indeed, a characteristic of a mature society was that it had grown up beyond the
young, crude, exuberant stage in which conditions were ideal for the cultivation
of the esthetic sensibilities. The ideal time for the production of major art, they
tended to conclude, was at that point in the history of a society when it was
moving from the savage into the civilized. They were thus not absolute esthetic
primitivists; but they were concerned nonetheless to tie art to its primitive
origins, as for the most part they were concerned equally to celebrate their
triumph over the limitations of such origins. So, to take one example, Thomas
Blackwell, meditating Homer's achievement in his Enquiry, had written in 1735
that it does not "seem to be given to one and the same Kingdom, to be
thoroughly civilized, and afford proper Subjects for Poetry"; and in the same
work he later declared that he hoped "That we may never be a proper Subject of
an Heroic Poem." Only by being a "Subject" for a heroic poem could the poet
write one; for only then would he have available to him the living language—
and thus the techniques—adequately to express that "Subject." This was to be a
dominant refrain—matched, to be sure, by a counter-refrain, treatment of which
is not immediately relevant here [2]—through the century. A significant number
of critics and literary theorists would be willing to resign themselves to having a
lesser art, if such resignation would mean that they could adequately celebrate
the enlightened achievements of their own century. They worked out a method of
historical analysis whereby they might construct "conjectural histories" of
civilization which would allow them to place poetry and the fine arts in the long
line of the evolution of culture toward their own time and to demonstrate,
moreover, that even as the arts had come early, so philosophy, proper religion,
the sciences, and all the highest forms of civilization had come late. Thus they
could announce triumphantly that if they had lost something, they had gained
much more.
But still the greatness of the art which they did not have moved and attracted
them. Their work is perhaps a measure of their attempts to rationalize out of
existence a longing for the art which they felt their time was not giving them.
Perhaps that is why Scott, in the 1790's—his mind, so it seems to us, not only
informed but made by the critical formulae of his time—tried to face squarely up
to the fact that somehow greet art had to be made possible for even his
enlightened century. Yet his mind was so simple and simplifying that he thought
that merely by denying his predecessors carefully worked out conjecture of the
necessary connection between an "early" society and great art, he could prove
that such was possible in his time. For the artist envisaged in the "Dissertation"
is still, in spite of his obvious attempts to have it otherwise, the artist as
conceived of by Blackwell and the rest of Scott's predecessors. Scott glories in
the civilized achievements of his own age, yet somehow hopes that the same
"liberal public encouragement" that obtained in Greece will come again and
make for such labor, pains, and study as will create in England art as great as
Greece's. Such a condition, he feels, is not impossible; yet he says nothing of the
kind of social structure and character which he has already shown to be requisite
to the development of "liberal public encouragement." The argument, such as it
is, is left hanging. That is to say, there is no evidence in the essay that Scott
could really think through to the possibility of the major artist's being
immediately present in an eighteenth-century society re-made, so far as its
artistic life was concerned, in a primitivistic pattern. He remains purely a
theoretical possibility in Scott's scheme of things, as does the society in which he
might flourish.

Likewise, in the other essays [3] which Scott collected and published along with
the "Dissertation," there is no evidence that he really understood what was
involved in taking the stand he did. In the most interesting of these pieces, "An
Essay on the Influence of Taste on Morals," he denies the existence of a
Hutchesonian moral sense, absolutely separates esthetic taste from morals, holds
that art will have an influence toward immorality unless it is kept in check with a
moral system properly inculcated by revealed religion. What he is entirely
unaware of is the possible radical implications of such a separation of art and
morality. As in the "Dissertation," he accepts a conventional notion and is
satisfied to push it as far as he can, never exploring its possible ambiguities.
The ambiguities are those, of course, which led to that transformation of critical
theory and artistic practice which we associate with the romantic movement. In
this light, it is interesting to note that just fourteen years after the first
publication of the "Dissertation" William Hazlitt could take a stand almost
identical in gross characteristics with that of Scott and the others—this in his
"Why the Arts are Not Progressive." [4] For Hazlitt, because "the arts unlike the
sciences and the forms of high civilization in general hold immediate
communication with nature," they develop best soon after their "birth" and thrive
"in a state of society which [is], in other respects, comparatively barbarous." He
goes so far as to instance Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Dante, Ariosto,
Raphael, Titian, Michaelangelo, Correggio, Cervantes, and Boccaccio. In all its
extremity, in its inclusive view of what constitutes a barbarous society and its
peculiar cultural virtues, this is but the conventional doctrine of Scott and all
those who came before him. But it is, in Hazlitt, transformed into a statement,
not, as in Scott's predecessors, of a rationale for the weakness of art in their time,
nor, as in Scott himself, of a dimly espoused hope of art in his time. It becomes a
frank, "sympathetic" statement of a fact of life which, when granted, will enable
men to enjoy and comprehend great art of all ages. The doctrine is focussed on
the work of art, not on the culture which lacks it; it has been crucially
transformed from a historical into a heuristic principle. Scott's "Dissertation"
embodies the doctrine just before its transformation—a neoclassical strain, we
can say, just before it had became a romantic strain. Scott almost takes his stand
with Hazlitt; but he is not quite there. And not being quite there, he is a whole
world away.
Roy Harvey Pearce
Ohio State University
 NOTES
[1] Among the works that I have seen which specifically develop this argument are:
Thomas Blackwell, An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer (1735); Richard
Hurd, The Third [Elizabethan] Dialogue (1759) and Letters on Chivalry and Romance
(1762); John Ogilvie, "An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients," in Poems on
Several Subjects (1762); John Brown, A Dissertation of the Rise, Union, and Power,
the Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions of Poetry and Music (1763) and a
shorter version of the Dissertation, The History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry
(1764); Hugh Blair, A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian (1763); William
Duff, An Essay on Original Genius (1767); Robert Wood, An Essay on the Original
Genius and Writings of Homer (1767, enlarged version 1769); Thomas Pownall, A
Treatise on the Study of Antiquities (1782). Such a list, however, if it were to indicate
the scope and ramifications of the argument would have to be expanded to include
more general eighteenth-century studies of the evolution of cultural forms; for the
argument on the nature of art and its relation to "primitive" societies is part of a larger
one centering on the whole idea of progress. Treatment of the whole subject has never
been fully integrated into a study of the nature (or natures) of eighteenth-century
criticism and critical theory—although a start has been made on study of it in and of
itself. The basic treatment remains Lois Whitney's Primitivism and the Idea of
Progress (Baltimore, 1934) and her two essays "English Primitivistic Theories of Epic
Origins," MP, XXI (1924), 337-378 and "Thomas Blackwell, a Disciple of
Shaftesbury," PQ, V (1926), 196-211. These are to be considerably qualified in their
general, sociological orientation by Gladys Bryson's Man and Society: The Scottish
Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, 1945). They are further to be qualified
in their literary-critical orientation by my "The Eighteenth-Century Scottish
Primitivists: Some Reconsiderations," ELH, XII (1945), 203-220, which is in turn
somewhat expanded upon and generalized in the appendix to Ernest Tuveson's
Millenium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (Berkeley,
1949).
[2] See, for example, Donald Foerster, "Scottish Primitivism and the Historical
Approach," PQ, XXIX (1950), 307-323.
[3] The essay was republished in 1804 as part of Scott's Dissertations, Essays, and
Parallels. These pieces range from college premium compositions of the 1770's to the
"Dissertation" of 1800.
[4] The essay is handily available in W. J. Bate's anthology, Criticism: The Major
Texts (New York, 1952), pp. 292-295.
 DISSERTATIONS,
Essays,
AND

PARALLELS.

BY

JOHN ROBERT SCOTT, D. D.

LONDON:
Printed by T. Bensley, Bolt Court,
AND SOLD BY J. JOHNSON, 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD;
AND MESS. C. & R. BALDWIN, NEW BRIDGE STREET,
BLACKFRIARS.
1804.
 CONTENTS.

PAGE.
A Dissertation on the Influence of Religion on Civil Society 1
A Dissertation on the Expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and the
Protestants from France and the Low Countries 33
A Dissertation on the first Peopling of America 75
A Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts 125
A Dissertation on National Population 181
An Essay on Writing History 219
An Essay on the Question, Was Eloquence beneficial to Athens? 245
An Essay on the Influence of Taste on Morals 269
Comparison between William III, of England and Henry IV, of France 303
Comparison of Cardinal Ximenes and Cardinal Richelieu 323
Comparison between Augustus Cæsar and Lewis XIV 343
Comparison of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, and William Pitt,
361
Earl of Chatham
 PREFACE.

Most of the following compositions were written several years ago, when the
Author was a student in the distinguished University of Dublin; whose
acknowledged excellence in classical literature, and in every branch of scientific
learning, needs not the celebration of his feeble praise: and by it the first and
second Dissertations, and one of the Essays, were honoured with the first literary
rewards in the power of that learned body to bestow. Written at first with an
honest desire of acquiring fair reputation by praise-worthy exertions, they are
now submitted to the public eye from a wish to contribute to the liberal
amusement, and perhaps to the improvement, of the minds of his fellow-
creatures; with all the natural anxieties of an author addressing a public, to
whom he is little known; but without any unmanly dread or humiliating
deprecation of just and candid criticism. Should they drop still-born from the
press, as it may be has been the fate of as meritorious compositions, the author
(as becomes him) will submit without murmuring to the general verdict. Should
they, on the contrary, be graced with a favourable reception, he shall deem
himself honoured by such notice; and will endeavour to render some larger
works of his, shortly to be submitted to the same respectable tribunal, as worthy
as his abilities will permit of its approving judgment.
Gloucester Street,
Queen Square, 1804.
 DISSERTATION
ON THE

PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS.

(Published in 1800.)
 TO
BENJAMIN WEST, ESQ.
P R E S I D E N T O F T H E R O YA L A C A D E M Y,

WHOSE TALENTS DIGNIFY,

AND WHOSE MANNERS ORNAMENT
HIS ELEVATED SITUATION AS HEAD OF
THAT HONOURABLE AND USEFUL
INSTITUTION,
THE

FOLLOWING DISSERTATION
ON

THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS

IS DEDICATED,
WITH SINCERE RESPECT AND ALL DUE DEFERENCE,
BY HIS OBLIGED
AND FAITHFUL HUMBLE SERVANT,

JOHN ROBERT SCOTT.

28, Gloucester Street,
Queen Square, April, 1800.
 A DISSERTATION, &c.

The natural feelings of man, when he enters into society with his fellow-
creatures, first induce him to improve by the means thence acquired the arts
necessary to his existence and well-being: whose want he every day felt in his
separate and detached state, and for whose melioration he has just reason to hope
from the union of combined force, and from the co-operation of confederated
talents. Presst incessantly by the demands for the sustenance of animal life, to
supply them plentifully is not only his first care, but also that of the community
with which he has associated, if it is even one degree removed from the savage
state: and hence, in this early period of growing civilization, the tending of
flocks and the tilling of fields, Pasturage and Agriculture, are deemed not only
necessary but honourable occupations; the simplicity of untutored man ever
leading him to estimate that to be most laudable which he finds to be most
useful. These being advanced to a certain degree of excellence, which, though
far inferior to what they are obviously capable of attaining, is yet sufficient not
only for the comfortable but for the indulgent enjoyment of life, new desires
arise, new wants spring up; and their gratification is pursued with an eagerness
correspondent to the novelty of their origin, and the untried force of their
impression. The cravings of our animal nature being amply provided for by the
ingenuity of the inhabitants, by the fertility of the soil, or by the conjoint
operation of both, the imagination begins in the luxuriance of abundance to
picture to itself new sources of delight, and spurning, not without some
contempt, the mere provision for existence, to fancy ideal pleasures, and to
search out with anxious care and laboured pains those objects which may gratify
them. And man, finding himself possessed of more than a sufficiency to supply
all his wants, is willingly inclined to impart some share of that redundance to
those who will contribute to his convenience and satisfaction; to those who will
render his comforts at all times more comfortable, who will relieve the languors
of his lassitude, and fill up the vacuities of his leisure with amusement. As there
always were some to whom labour had no charms, other more agreeable means
of acquiring support were quickly sought out, and the inventive powers of the
mind were stretched to form those imagined pleasures whose want was felt, and
whose reward was ready.
Hence Architecture, Painting, and Statuary, (with strict propriety denominated
the fine arts) primarily arose; hence they derived their most assiduous
cultivation, and hence the utmost perfection to which they have yet attained.
Unsatisfied with the hut that merely protected from the inclemencies of the
elements, and, in the moments of repose, from the unwarned attacks of the
savages of the forest, man soon sought out for more permanent, more pleasing
habitations: to which experience first joined increased conveniences, and then
his inventive faculties, sometimes aided by fortunate chance, sometimes led on
by correct fancy, added those ornaments that have stood the test of ages, and
fixed those proportions that have uniformly approved themselves to all the
judicious through the revolving course of various centuries. The ingenuity of
love taught the fair nymph to portray the shadow of that favoured youth whose
merits had won her heart, that even in his absence she might feast her mind with
beholding some similitude of his form: and hence the imagination, impregnated
by the nascent thought, conceived those possibilities of excellence in painting,
and that source of intellectual enjoyment thence arising, which Zeuxis and
Parrhasius exhibited to the admiring eyes of Greece, and which Raphael and
Michael Angelo have displayed to the enraptured contemplation of the modern
world. Poetry, it is true, early indeed enabled mankind, by the fascinating power
of its melodious sounds and its persuasive numbers, to "raise monuments [e]
more durable than brass," and to consecrate to immortality those illustrious
persons who had entitled themselves to lasting fame by their deserts. But, even
long antecedent to that period, the desire of having some representative form of
reverenced or beloved individuals had taught men to make some likenesses of
them in rude sculptures of stone or ivory: though destitute of the advantage of
colouring, yet more impressively striking to the senses than the productions of
painting, had they then existed (which may be doubted), and, from the nature of
their materials, less liable to the injuries of the weather. These, we acknowledge,
were cold, inanimate, and destitute of all appearance of motion; till Dædalus
contrived to give expression to the countenance and action to the limbs; on
which succeeding artists improving, each rivalling and then surpassing his
predecessor, at length produced those "works to wonder at," the exquisite, the
unmatched, the divine dignity of the Apollo Belvedere, the energy, the athletic
force of the Borghese combatant, the agonized expression of the Laocoon, and
the tearful sorrows of the Niobe.
The expectations formed of the enjoyments to be derived from the masterly
productions of these Arts have in no one instance been disappointed; but, we
may assert without fear of contradiction, have in every case been greatly
exceeded: for though the emanations of the arts, with the single exception of the
Apollo Belvedere, may have fallen short of that ideal excellence which forms
their standard in each duly cultivated mind, as, in the department of literature,
the great Roman orator states to have been the case with his own admirable
compositions, they have yet confessedly arrived at a degree of beauty, a splendor
of effect, and a power of impression, hardly to be hoped, and not easily to be
conceived.
Should it then be demanded, what causes produced this transcendent beauty, this
unrivalled grace, this combination of pleasing form and perfect utility? They will
be found, not in any fortuitous concurrence of accidents, not in any benign
aspect of the planets, not in any genial influence of the atmosphere, as has been
weakly imagined and absurdly asserted by certain self-denominated
Philosophers of the continent; but to have been the effects of much labour and
much pains, of much study and much industry, of great national encouragement,
and of the peculiar situation of that fortunate land wherein they were advanced
from their salient principle to their matured perfection.
To confine ourselves to Greece, with which and its history, by means of its
incomparable writers, we are best acquainted: the first striking circumstance in
their favour was, that in it they were not borrowed, nor imported, nor caused by
foreign imitation, but were the home-bred produce of the country; and therefore,
however cultivated and improved, always retained the rich raciness of a native
soil. Successive generations of artists arose, each excelling the other in merit,
and each of these had a correspondent race of their countrymen ready to admire,
and prepared to applaud them. No fastidious delicacy, no affected superiority of
discernment or skill, repressed their talents, or curbed their genius: but free
scope was given to the boldest of their flights, and, when they happened to
succeed, the praise of their own age was their sure and adequate reward. The
productions of the earlier periods would not have, indeed, pleased in the polished
age of Pericles, unless as illustrative of the progress of the arts; for then more
captivating models were every day produced, more enchanting examples were
every day exhibited to the view. But in their own age, and their own time, being
superior to all that had been seen before, they were thought matchless
performances, and so received with undisputed plaudits the highest estimation.
This connate temper of the times (if I may use the expression) proved a most
powerful incentive to the abilities of the artists, and ensured to them, if
surpassing in merit their predecessors, honourable regard, and that fame [f] which
above all other considerations was dear to a Grecian heart. Hence labour and
pains, assiduity and exertion, were unremittingly applied to advance their
peculiar art, to smooth its asperities, to ornament its nakedness, to improve
whatever of excellent existed in it, and to aim at still farther capabilities of
excellence. Certain of the approbation of their contemporaries, repressed by no
ideas of unattainable perfection, which were the growth of latter times and of the
greatest refinement, they daily added something to the common stock; and
though that something was in itself, perhaps, inconsiderable, it yet raised its
possessor to no common degree of celebrity. Thus the arts advanced, proceeding
from strength to strength, constantly receiving accessions of improvement,
which were favoured by many conspiring, and retarded by no unpropitious
circumstances: and, being native to the country, the abilities of the artists in a
great measure formed the taste of the age, as its fostering admiration constituted
their most flattering reward.
From a situation perfectly dissimilar, though the Romans long and sedulously
cultivated the arts, yet their noblest efforts never equalled the best works of the
Grecian school; of which the sacred remnants still remain unrivalled and
unmatched. For amongst them they were not indigenous, but introduced as it
were by violence; by the power of the conquering sword, and by the plundering
of insatiable rapacity: each of the Roman generals, however ignorant or
unpolished himself, yet pillaging vanquished Greece of the choicest works of her
happier days. Thus, indeed, exquisite models and patterns of consummate beauty
were procured for the rustic Latians, [g] on which they wrought with assiduity,
and attempted to emulate: but their redundancy was rather oppressive than co-
operative, and their very perfection tended to prevent an encouraging esteem of
the rising artists. For the judgment, or what we call the Taste, of the public being
formed not gradually, and by progressive steps of improving art, but all at once,
and (as it were) at a bound, assumed a squeamish delicacy which nothing
imperfect would please, and which delighted more in finding faults than in
discovering beauties. And this cause, whose operation is alike powerful and
general, contributed more to keep down the Roman arts, and to prevent them
from equalling the Greek, than any inferiority of talents, or than any want of
continued application and culture.
The case has been the same in the modern world, and it will be found universally
true, that where the arts have arisen from natural, or nearly natural causes, and
have thence proceeded by gradual advances to higher degrees of perfection, the
judgment or taste of the nation similarly meliorating with their improvement,
they have attained, and will attain, the utmost excellence which the abilities of
the artists can give them: but when brought forward among a people by
extraneous circumstances, such as the force of conquests, the commanding
influence of supreme power, or the efforts of affected imitation, though they may
bloom and flourish for a season, that they never will arrive at that richness of
maturity they have been seen to possess elsewhere, nor will enjoy that vigour of
growth which native juices infuse; but, like hothouse plants, though fairly
seeming, are yet vapid to the sense, and when bereft of their borrowed heat,
quickly sink, rot, and die.
The progress of the arts in the ancient world, with the astonishing excellence to
which they were carried, was also much aided by the manners and customs there
prevailing, and in constant and daily practice. To games and vigorous exercises
the ancients were remarkably addicted, regarding them both as liberal
amusements and as a preparatory discipline for the active occupations of war, in
which each freeman of the state knew himself obliged to engage at a certain
period of his life, and which he could not avoid without being damned to never-
ceasing infamy. Now all these were performed naked, as well on account of the
warmth of the atmosphere as to preclude all unequal advantages, and to
habituate the mind fearlessly to expose the person to the assaults of incumbent
danger. Hence the human figure was hourly exhibited to the inspecting view of
the attentive beholder, whether sculptor or painter, in all its various forms of
grace and elegance, of strength and force, or of agony and torture: and these not
the assumed appearances of fictitious feeling, but the vivid effects of actual
endurance, and glowing from the mint of present impression. These were not to
be sought in Schools and Academies, they were not the lifeless colourings of
mercenary hirelings, but the energies of men emulous of fame, and conscious
that their characters with their countrymen would be materially influenced by
their performances in these favourite contests. Contests which as amusements
were the delight of all, which as exercises were the duty of multitudes; which
hoary age beheld with rapture, as recalling the remembrance of the days of their
prime, and which unfledged youth gazed on with transport, as picturing those
deeds whereby they panted soon to be distinguished. Thus nothing but the most
careless inattention could avoid noting the distinctive marks of the various
passions and affections, which nature writes in very legible characters: and as all
from repeated observation were equally well acquainted with them, in their
representation by the artist nothing short of the most exact and accurate likeness
could hope for tolerance, much less for approbation.
Their scientific knowledge of anatomy, as applicable and subservient to medical
purposes, was perhaps inferior to ours, for they appear not to have enjoyed the
advantage in their principal cities of such men as the Hunters [h] and Cleghorn: [i]
but that inferiority proved not injurious to the artist, who chiefly engaged in
imitating the prominent features of the human frame when thrown into action,
amply compensated for his ignorance of the theory of muscular motion, of the
nervous system, and of osteology, by the effects of observation incessantly
repeated on the most striking objects, and, it may be, the more impressive from
coming unsought and uninculcated. In fact they could scarcely avoid making this
observation: it was presst on them from every quarter; it was urged on them by
every incident. If they attended their morning exercises, it was excited there; if
they resorted to their evening amusements, it was roused there also. In the
retirement of the country it was not allowed to sleep; in the bustle of the city it
was awakened to all its vivacity. From private enjoyment, from public security;
from the recreations of peace, from the toils of war; from the vacuities of
idleness, and from the labours of industry it alike received nurture, support, and
aliment. Thus reiteratedly enforced, its effects became, like those of a second
nature, interwoven with the habitudes of the mind, and called forth into action,
when the occasion required, with readiness and facility, without effort and
without premeditation. Hence the wonders that we are told of the astonishing
power of their paintings, limited as we know they were in the number of their
colours; of which though we are deprived of the sight by the lapse of time, yet
are they rendered credible, nay, fully verified, to us by the matchless remains of
their statues; whose transcendent merit we have ocular demonstration that
neither prejudice had praised nor ignorance had extolled beyond their real
deserts. Hence the truth of nature in the Laocoon, where the expression of
suffering is not confined to the agitated visage, but is as forcibly marked in the
agonized foot as in the distorted countenance. Hence every muscle moves, every
sinew is stretched, every atom of the figure conspires to the general effect in the
Borghese combatant: [k] and hence each particular part of the Farnesian Hercules
represents, as forcibly as the entire statue, that character of superior manly
strength and resistless might, which ancient tales have taught us to connect with
the idea of the person of that fabled hero.
It cannot be inferred from what has been here said that there is intended any
unqualified approbation of the custom of appearing naked; which so generally
prevailed among the ancients, and more especially among the Greeks. Surely no:
for its indecency is obvious; it smoothed the path to many immoralities, and
doubtless tended in no slight degree to inflame, if not kindle, some notorious
vices to which they were eminently addicted. But it has been merely considered
with respect to its subserviency to promote the arts of painting and sculpture:
and its powerful and salutary influence on them seems so apparent as to be
nearly incontestible. It co-operated with other causes, yet to be mentioned, to
give them that superlative excellence which, through a long succession of
centuries, has excited uniform admiration; and which yet, superlative as it was,
fell short of the ideas of it entertained and cherished by the artists.
The peculiar situation of Greece, from the first beginnings of the arts to their
most flourishing period, contributed also materially to their improvement and
perfection. In its utmost extent not a country of large dimensions, it was yet
divided and subdivided into a number of independent states; each eager for
distinction, each emulous of fame, each jealous of all superiority in their
neighbours. Never for any length of time subject to the dominion of masters, till
the overwhelming influence of the Macedonian sunk them all into common
slavery, their constitutions were free, or what they regarded as free: in which
each citizen felt himself equally interested with any other to extend the
reputation, to exalt the glory, and to enlarge the consequence of the state. And
when the pre-eminence of power had assigned to Sparta, and afterwards to
Athens, that preponderance of authority and weight of consequence necessary to
a leading state, first among its equals; still, from national spirit and from deep-
rooted habits, an emulation every where prevailed of rivalling in the first rank of
reputation each of their neighbours, although they had conceded to one of them
the dignity of command. With the single exception of Sparta, where the stern
discipline of Lycurgus effectually prevented their progress, as after the arts had
began to arise their cultivation was diffused and eagerly pursued throughout all
Greece; the praise of excellence in them early became and long continued an
object of the first importance with all its various states. They regarded them not
only as a means of internal ornament, in which yet they much prided themselves,
but also of external character; a means which might raise to higher fame than the
most celebrated their favoured district, however inferior to them in political
power. Hence the possession of an artist of distinguished abilities and superior
talents was considered as a national concern: and the esteem wherein he was
held, the popularity he acquired, and the dignified stations to which with fair
prospects of success he might aspire, were answerable to the consequence which
his genius was thought to confer on his native land.
As this sentiment was universal, animating the minds and guiding the conduct of
all the different states, its influence on the improvement of the arts, and on the
exertions of their professors, was powerful in the extreme. They were not
deemed the lucrative trades of mechanical men, by which some fame and much
money might be procured; but the ennobling occupations of the best-deserving
citizens, anxiously labouring to exalt the reputation of their country, and to raise
her to a more envied eminence among the surrounding and rival republics. And
the citizens thus employed were conscious, in addition to the common motives
of rivalry generally prevalent at all times among men of spirit engaged in the
same pursuits, that not only their individual character, but the fame of their
nation, was implicated in their labours; and fired by the warm energy of that
recollection, they wrought with a glowing heat, with an ardour of enthusiasm
that, in repeated instances, burst forth in the brightest blaze of excellence. For
their exertions in their particular arts were not thought, either by themselves or
by the public, the mere efforts of competition of sculptors, painters, or architects,
with their fellow artists; but trials of merit between adjacent communities, each
vain of their present character, each aiming at higher distinction, each hoping for
the pre-eminence: to which trials the eminent artists stept forwards the
champions of a people, not the combatants in a private contest.
Hence with unremitting zeal beauty and grace, strength and spirit, truth and
nature, were investigated through all their different forms, were examined with
minute attention, were applied with scrupulous accuracy. It little weighed with
the professor what his own countrymen, however polished, judged of his work,
what impression it made on them, or what plaudits of theirs it called forth: but
how it would be received at the Olympic or Isthmian games, at the general
assembly of all Greece; where each skilful eye and each intelligent mind would
be employed in scrutinizing it without favour or affection, and would compare it
as well with the best productions of similar art then known as with the elaborate
essays of contemporary artists. Thus whatever of genius, or talents, or skill, or
judgment, or industry, each man possessed, was called forth into action by
motives the most operative on the human mind, whose power is known and
confessed: and the consequence was the rapid and unequalled improvement of
the Arts. Improvement which still astonishes, and which we are sometimes
inclined to imagine the effort of a superior race of beings to those with whom we
converse: but which arose from causes strong and cogent indeed, but natural, and
without difficulty discoverable.
Something not unlike this happened at the revival of the arts in Europe, and
contributed materially to their advancement. For Italy, which was their cradle,
was then broken into a number of independent states, mostly free, and rivalling
each other in every praise of prowess and policy. Hence, when the revival of the
arts furnished a new source of fame, it was pursued with avidity; and the various
schools formed in its different cities vied with each other for superiority, and by
their laudable rivalry promoted the progress of the arts with extraordinary
celerity. And though, perhaps, these schools, which soon became distinguished
by peculiar merits, may not finally have contributed to the perfection of the arts,
as leading their respective students rather to pursue the attainment of that one
distinct merit than to aim at the acquisition of universal excellence; yet, at the
close of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century, by their praiseworthy
emulation and vigorous exertions, they were singularly useful, and essentially
tended to the rapid improvement of the reviving arts. Their fame added much to
the splendor and reputation of the cities wherein they were settled, and that
circumstance proved a very perceptible incentive to invigorate their talents and
to animate their exertions; and so produced, though in an inferior degree, not a
little of that spirited labour, of that enthusiastic devotion to their profession,
which had aided so considerably the progress of the arts in Greece. We say in an
inferior degree; because the Italian cities, though sensible of their worth, and
persuaded of their public utility, never bestowed on individual professors such
extraordinary marks of attention and reverence as the Grecian states were in the
habit of lavishing on their more illustrious artists; and, consequently, the cause
being lessened, the effect must have been proportionably diminished. In truth
this species of rivalry, in which states or nations, however small, feel themselves
interested, has ever proved one of the strongest stimulatives that could be
applied to abilities; as it combines the patriotic affections of the worthy citizen
with the natural ambition of the artist, and alike operates on some of the most
powerful public and private springs of action.
But the labour and pains, the study and industry early employed and long
continued, in the cultivation of the arts, naturally and necessarily advanced their
progress in a striking manner: raising them to such a height of perfection as we
weakly think unattainable, because we will not use the adequate means of
endeavouring to attain it. Labour is to man, from his constitution and his frame,
the real price of every truly valuable acquisition; which, though indolence spurns
and idleness rejects, always brings its own reward with it, whether we are
ultimately successful or not, in the consciousness of having acted a manly part,
and in the vigour of mind and health of body which it, and it alone, invariably
confers. Some fortuitous instances may be mentioned of those who have
possessed both without its aid; of those who, nursed on the lap of indolence, and
folded in the arms of idleness, have enjoyed that first of human blessings, a
sound mind in a sound body: but they are instances to astonish, not examples to
incite. This is even more strictly and peculiarly true as it regards the arts, than it
is in several other cases. For the great merit of painting and sculpture consisting
in their exact and captivating copies of nature, and of architecture in its
combination of beauty with grandeur, of convenience with magnificence, it is
obvious that these qualities are never the casual effects of chance and accident,
of lucky hits and fortunate events; but the steady results of pains and care, of
study and attention.
Of this truth the professors of the arts in Greece were quickly and fully
convinced; and applied that conviction to its only proper purpose, to an
unremitting labour on their own appropriate pursuit: a labour which, paramount
over each other object, neither pleasure prevented, nor politics precluded, nor the
calls of animal life hindered. To excel in their art, to surpass their predecessors,
to outstrip their competitors, to be the conspicuous subject of Grecian
admiration, were the objects of their daily thoughts and of their nightly dreams:
objects which scarce for a moment retired from their view, or, if for a moment
retiring, it was only that they might recur again with renovated force. The [l]
multa dies et multa litura which the Roman poet ascribes to the Grecian writers,
and to which he truly attributes their superior merit, were still more eminently
true of their artists; who applied to the completion of their various works a
severity of study and a perseverance of labour that to us, habituated to very
different manners indeed, seem surprizing; but of which the authenticated
accounts cannot be disputed. As exalted character, not the mere making of
money, was the aim to which their thoughts were directed, it was pursued with
that eagerness which honest ambition ever creates: and though, incidentally,
fortune frequently followed their fame, as it came unsought for, none of its
degrading motives swayed their conduct.
It was not the idea of the [m] hundred talents which he received, great as that sum
was (for not one drachma of it would he have received had not his work been
approved), that inspirited the genius of Phidias when he was sculpturing the
Olympian Jupiter; but the reflection that by his skill the rude block was to be
transformed into the representative likeness of the father of gods and men, to be
the admiration and adoration of his enraptured countrymen: and hence profound
study, exquisite pains, and incessant labour, were employed to produce that
statue, which thence became afterwards the wonder of the world. Under the
impulse of such impressions must the Apollo Belvedere have come from the
hands of its unequalled sculptor: for though we know not the history of that
incomparable statue, yet its expression of dignity more than human, its unforced
graceful ease which nature can but faintly copy, its perfect symmetry, and union
of complete beauty with full bodily strength, tell more than a thousand witnesses
the pains, the study, and the labour that must have been unremittingly exerted to
produce it.
It would argue a silly prejudice, not a due sense of the merits of the ancients, to
attempt to insinuate that this labour and study, to which we are inclined to
attribute so much, was universal. No; for in Greece then, as with ourselves now,
there were among the artists (what in the modern phrase we call) fine gentlemen:
persons of too sublime a genius to condescend to study, and of too delicate a
frame to submit to labour. The character of the species has been preserved,
though the names of its individuals have long, long since been forgotten. But
they never promoted the progress, never advanced the improvement of any art:
but, like their amiable successors, followed a trade for support, and did not
cultivate a profession with dignity. But the persons of whom we speak, as
distinguished by these qualities, were those worthy citizens who addicted
themselves to no art without adorning and improving it; whose names ennobled
the age in which they lived; who then were never mentioned without reverence,
nor yet, at this far distant period, are ever thought on without respect. By their
studies and their labours, vigorously and undeviatingly exerted, was the progress
of the arts promoted, their improvement accelerated, and their near
approximation to perfection effected: they thus experimentally proving the
energetic power of these valuable qualities, and leaving examples to fire the
emulation of the spirited and the active in each future age.
In addition to the circumstances already mentioned, whose power and efficiency
on the progress of the arts we have endeavoured to point out, there must be
called to mind the great national encouragement which they received in Greece,
and the extraordinary influence which it must have had on the warm
imaginations of its gay and high-spirited inhabitants. The desire of distinction
and honour is a principle interwoven in the constitution of our nature; and
though, like most others we possess, it is liable to perversion, is in itself not only
blameless but laudable; inciting the best exertions of talents where they are, and
often supplying their place where it finds them not. There are no countries,
however adverse the regent of the day may have yoked his horses from them,
where its operation is not more or less felt: and in exact proportion to the
civilization and mental improvement of each country, its ascendency has ever
been found to be high, its dominion to be great. This is strictly true even with
regard to the estimation of private individuals: but the applause of a whole
people has invariably been deemed the most just meed of the most exceeding
merit, ever since nations have assumed a fixed and stable form. Now this
applause formed an important part of the great national rewards by which Greece
fostered the arts; and it was a part that peculiarly came home both to the business
and bosoms of each worthy citizen, and caused every pulse of a Grecian heart to
vibrate to its impression. Their characteristic fondness of fame is known and
acknowledged; but this applause, though by them in itself extravagantly valued,
was not a mere empty, flattering sound: for, from the constitutions prevailing in
nearly every state of Greece, it was the sure conductor to domestic dignity, to
political power, and to commanding sway in the public deliberations. The first
offices of the state, and the prime trusts of the government, were open to that
distinguished artist whose admired performances had secured the universal
suffrage. They were often without seeking offered by popular gratitude to his
acceptance; nay, sometimes with honest violence forced on his unwilling
reception. Thus the principles of interest, ambition, popularity, confessedly some
of the most powerful that guide the conduct of mankind, were called forth in aid
of that natural bent or disposition which had induced the man to cultivate any
particular art: and the consequence was such as might be expected from the
efficiency of such operative motives, surpassing merit and supreme excellence.
Another species of national encouragement, nearly connected with this, was the
certainty which the eminent artist enjoyed that, whenever the occasion offered,
his talents would be employed to erect, or to decorate with the labours of his
pencil or his chissel, the temples, the theatres, the porticoes, the places of public
assembling of the cities of Greece; where his works, contributing amply to his
fortune from their munificent reward, would contribute more to his fame when
exposed to the scrutinizing view of that intelligent people. He had no cause to
fear that his abilities would be overlooked or buried in obscurity by
prepossession, partiality, or prejudice: he had no apprehensions to dread from the
effects of interested relationship, of commanding influence, of narrow local
attachment, or of proud and presuming ignorance. If his merit was
acknowledged his employment was sure; and he was even courted by the general
voice to exert his talents for the public credit, not depressed in their exertion by
mean and base affections. He was not obliged to solicit for employment with
humiliating applications, and, when employed, to labour under the multiplied
disadvantages of deficient or stinted means, of complying with vitiated
judgments, of submitting to the senseless whims of folly and caprice. Full scope
was given to the fertility of his imagination, to the extent of his genius, to the
vigour of his fancy: whilst all the powers of his mind and all the vigour of his
body, all the ingenuity of his head and all the dexterity of his hands, were
impelled to their best performances by the consciousness that all deficiencies
would be imputable solely to himself, the public being free from the slightest
suspicion of having either curbed or confined his abilities. As no elevation of
genius made him giddy, hence grace and beauty, strength and vigour, expression
and passion, respectively marked his performances; and his fame became
connected with the edifices, the statues, the paintings, that ornamented the
country, which struck every eye, and which none beheld without recollecting
with respect the able artist whose workmanship had produced them.
The effect of this kind of encouragement on the arts was great, is manifest, and
need be but slightly mentioned: yet, perhaps, may appear the more striking from
contrasting it with some practices of more modern times. In them the first city in
the world has disgraced itself with all who have eyesight, by employing to erect
its most expensive building [n] an architect because the man was a citizen: and,
in more countries of Europe than one, statues and paintings are exhibited as
commemorative of illustrious public deeds, where contorsion and extravagance,
where flutter and glare, form the predominant characters; but they dishonour
those countries, on account of the artists engaged to execute them being
employed because they were the favourites of despots, the flatterers of titled
harlots, or the relations of directors; whilst men of the first talents and merit in
their profession were pining in indigence and obscurity, unnoticed and
unfriended. The consequences of this latter conduct none will say that we have
reason to boast of from the superlative excellence of modern art; but what has
been felt from it may readily induce us to believe how essentially its direct
opposite must have promoted the progress of the arts in Greece.
The vast sums expended by the Grecian states on their public monuments and
their public works (vast, indeed, when the comparative value of money then and
now is considered), tended much to assist the progress of the arts, and to aid
their high improvement. For, though we have unquestionable reason to believe
that the sordid motive of private profit was not the first principle in the minds of
those great artists who have immortalized their names by their works, yet
without a certain liberality of expence their ideas could not have been realized,
their works could not have been executed; and that liberality they found limited
commonly by nothing but the public means, and often not even by them. We
know from the gravest and clearest authorities with what lavish expenditure
scenic representations were exhibited at Athens, with what unbounded
magnificence her temples, her tribunals, her porticoes were decorated: we
equally well know the splendor of Corinth, a near neighbouring city; the
incalculable price of its paintings, the inestimable value of its statues, and that
from the coalesced mass of its molten metals there arose, at its destruction, a
compound more highly prized by the Romans than gold. The other principal
cities were alike studious of embellishment, alike emulous of ornament, and in
various proportions enjoyed them according to the circumstances of time and
situation: but Delphi and Olympia, the grand seats of the national religion and
the national games, concentered in themselves each choicest production of
genius, each happiest effort of art, each transcendent display of excellence;
amassed with a judgment that delighted, with a profusion that surprized, and
with an expence that astonished.
This generous spirit in carrying on and completing public works which, though it
may sometimes be pushed to an excess (as, perhaps, was the case in Greece), is
so truly honourable to any people, had, and obviously must have had, the most
decided influence in advancing and improving the arts, and in giving them that
degree of perfection which has never yet been exceeded, nor even equalled. It
excited exertion, by the security that its efforts would not be suffered to remain
undisplayed, but would be invited to add loveliness to the beautiful, and splendor
to the magnificent; it roused the full force of emulation, by the certainty that
superior merit would receive superior rewards, and neither be permitted to
languish in privacy nor to pine in poverty; and it invigorated the boldest flights
of genius, by the firm assurance that there was a prevalent spirit ready to
countenance, prepared to adopt, and anxious to encourage them. It would be no
small absurdity to affirm that fortune, as well as fame, had not attractions for a
Grecian artist; for it must ever be absurd to affirm generally the absence of the
operation of general principles: and therefore the great pecuniary recompences
which their talents procured had, doubtless, a proportionate influence on all their
labours to improve their art; though, it may be, less in that region than in many
other countries. And from the combined efficacy of these several kinds of
national encouragement, which, like different branches of the same tree, spring
all from the same root, the progress of the arts was furthered so essentially, was
advanced so highly, as we have heard of with wonder, and have seen with
amazement.
So complex having been the causes, so slow and progressively gradual the
progress of the Fine Arts, highly grateful must it be to every truly British breast
to consider the rapid advances they have made in this favoured Isle within the
last fifty years: advances certainly unmatched in their former history, as in that
period they have arisen from the utmost imbecility of infantine weakness (indeed
almost from non-entity) to a vigorous maturity that leaves far behind them the
emasculate efforts and puny productions of all other contemporary European
nations. The causes of this unequalled improvement have notoriously been the
countenance and fostering protection of his present Majesty, an admirer and
intelligent judge of their merit, and the ardent spirit of emulation excited among
the artists themselves by such exalted and distinguishing notice. These co-
operating have produced an exertion of talents, a display of abilities, and
emanations of genius that always wore in existence, but which required
concurring circumstances to bring them into full action, and to cause them to
expand their latent energies. And had the general patronage been correspondent
to these fortunate incidents, had not the fashionable jargon of presumptuous,
self-created, arbiters of taste, affecting to despise National art, vitiated the public
mind, or rather strengthened an ancient prejudice there floating, it is not easy to
conceive how much greater still would have been their progress. It is at least
certain that our ingenious young artists would have been amply encouraged to
exert themselves, and not suffered, after the most promising exhibitions of
dawning talents, to pine in indigence and wretchedness, to sink into obscurity
and oblivion, or (like the illfated, but most meritorious Proctor [o]) to hasten, in
the very opening of life, the termination of mortal existence from the
excruciating pressure of continued penury and misery.
Thus having attempted to investigate the progress of the arts, and to what was
owing that supreme excellence which they formerly attained, we seem to have
reasonable grounds to conclude that it flowed from such natural and moral
causes as, at all times and in all cases, are known powerfully to affect the
feelings and to actuate the conduct of man. No whimsical refinements, no
marvellous mysteries, no imaginary and fantastic theories have been had
recourse to: but lighted on our way by the irradiating torch of authentic history,
and unseduced by the false glare of lying legends, we have not dared so much to
affirm what, in certain situations, our fellow-creatures MUST do, as to detail with
some care what in fact they DID do. If what we have here advanced has not the
attraction of novelty to allure, it is hoped that it is not deficient in the
recommendation of truth to convince. It has not been thought necessary formally
to refute the sentiments of those profound Philosophers, who have sagaciously
discovered the causes of the inferiority of the arts in some countries and of their
superiority in others, and consequently the perfection to which they arrived in
Greece, in the power of the solar beams in certain latitudes, in the influences of
the atmosphere, and in those of terrestrial and celestial vapours: for if the causes
here assigned appear fully adequate to the end produced, as we conceive they do,
it must be idle to shew the inutility of others, gratuitously brought forth from the
inexhaustible storehouse of fancy, and supported by any thing rather than solid
reasoning. It must be allowed that they very roundly assert, but as fallaciously
argue, whenever they deign to argue on this subject: for mere assertions,
positive, pompous, presuming, but assertions still, are the commonest weapons
of their warfare. And, possibly, it would neither be reputable to contest the
specious subtilty of the sophisms of even such sages, nor honourable to conquer
the powerless imbecility of their assertions.
It is but fair to avow that this enquiry into the progress of the arts has not been
entered on for the sole purpose of ascertaining, as far as we were able, the causes
of the surpassing excellence to which they were carried in Greece, without at the
same time intimating, with due deference to superior judgments and to superior
authority, the efficacy of the same causes, at all times and in all countries, in
improving and exalting them. As human nature is the same at all periods, though
diversified in its exterior shew by the various customs, modes, and manners, that
variously prevail, it cannot be seriously doubted but that those principles, which
have been found by experience in one country to powerfully sway its conduct,
and to incite its efforts in the Arts to their noblest productions, would be equally
efficient and equally successful elsewhere, were they fairly applied, and as
vigorously exerted. We have no satisfactory reason for believing that either the
mental or corporeal powers of man have degenerated in the succession of ages:
and we well know that, by the benefits of experience and invention, considerable
aids have been added to both, to methodize their motions and to facilitate their
operations. Our profounder and better-studied knowledge of Metaphysics, our
improved skill in Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, and our more accurate
acquaintance with the principles of colours, with their combinations and their
shades, all confessedly tend to these points. Should then the same liberal public
encouragement be displayed, by those possessed of the power of displaying it, as
dignified the best days of Greece; should the same labour, the same pains, the
same study, the same industry, be used by modern artists as distinguished their
truly illustrious predecessors; we might not vainly hope to see the arts carried to
still greater perfection than they have ever yet attained; we might expect to
behold their deficiencies supplied, their utilities increased, their energies
enlarged, and their beauties augmented.
On national encouragement it becomes not the mediocrity of our talents and
station to presume to decide; yet, possibly, it will not be judged too vauntingly
confident to say that it should in all cases be spirited, generous, impartial, and
should not be subjected to the caprices of power, to the varying humours of the
transient depositaries of the public confidence, nor to the inconstant and ever-
mutable gusts of popular phrenzy. What effect such encouragement would have
on the artists themselves can, indeed, be only conjectured; for such
encouragement has never yet been exhibited in the modern world: but that
conjecture is neither vague nor random, as it is guided by permanent principles,
and directed by the known influence of steady affections on the human heart. It
may be affirmed then, with some assurance, that it would inspirit their labours,
that it would multiply their pains, that it would invigorate their studies, that it
would augment their industry: for such were heretofore its experienced
consequences in similar cases, and therefore they are reasonably to be expected
again. They would not waste their youth in the riot of lawless pleasure, and so
treasure up sickness and sorrow for the days of their prime: they would not
spend their hours in the ceaseless pursuit of the intoxicating amusements of
some great capital: they would not lay out their whole attention on the low and
subordinate, but gainful, branches of their trade, in contempt of the superior
features of their ART, and of its possible improvement: but concentring all their
powers, all their abilities, all their faculties, in the advancement of their peculiar
pursuit, would rapidly raise themselves from the drudgery of mechanical
workmanship to the proud elevation of professional exertion. Thus the arts,
advanced by so conspicuous a change of manners in their cultivators, and by an
encouragement differing so widely from the paltry private patronage pretending
to that name, would attain that state of perfection to which their admirers fondly
wish to see them carried; but which they must wish in vain till something like
the changes here etched out shall have taken place. And that what depends on
the artists has not been too sanguinely supposed, nor too strongly pictured, will
surely not be asserted: for it has only been supposed that they are men of
common sense and natural feelings; that they are not insensible to the
allurements of each dignified distinction in life; that they have hearts that can be
warmed and minds that can be roused.
That much higher ideas might justly be formed of some artists we can positively
affirm from personal knowledge; as we know some who have really the souls of
Artists; who, even in present circumstances, instead of grovelling all their lives
in mean and sordid occupations, adventurously dare to soar into the immense
void of possible excellence; and whose characters it would be highly grateful to
portray, were not the desire restrained by the consciousness of inability to do
justice to their merits. Such men, indeed, by the vigour of their genius,
counteract the disadvantages to which they may be exposed, and, bursting the
barriers of opposing obstacles with spirit all their own, impart to the arts
whatever of addition or improvement they receive; elucidating their obscurities,
polishing their asperities, and lopping their luxuriancies: and their number might
be increased to any given amount. But until that halcyon period shall arrive, if it
ever shall arrive, when the arts shall be considered as real national objects, and
receive real national encouragement (without which, it must be confessed, all
extraordinary progress in them is not generally to be expected), their beauty,
their grace, their grandeur, depend on these men alone. And conscious of the
high ground whereon they stand, as the champions of truth and nature against
fashion and futility, and caprice and extravagance, and of the possible benefits
resulting from their labours in giving passion to the mute canvas, expression to
the inanimate block, and magnificence to utility in each public edifice; they will
not suffer themselves to be discouraged by temporary neglect, nor to be
disheartened by temporary preferences of the incapable and undeserving. They
will strengthen their minds to encounter the provoking criticisms of pert and
petulant presumption; they will scorn the contempts of self-conceited and
ignorant folly, however highly seated; and they will meet with firm dignity the
misjudging decisions of purse-proud affluence. And conscious worth shall crown
them with a wreath of honour, greener than ever bloomed on the brow of an
Olympic conqueror; their own hearts shall applaud them; their works shall form
a lasting monument to the immortality of their names; and their fame shall float
down the current of future ages with daily increasing strength, with daily
augmented splendor.
The final result then of our enquiry on this amusing and interesting subject is,
that we have the best grounds for concluding the progress of the arts originally,
and the great perfection to which they were carried in Greece, to have arisen
from natural and moral causes of confessed efficacy, and not from any casual
circumstances, extraneous to and independent of man: and we deem it
reasonable to think that the same causes, operating as uncontroledly any where
else within the extent of the temperate climates, would most probably again
produce the same effects. Far from indulging any licence of imagination, or from
giving wing to its flights, it has been endeavoured rather carefully to detail facts
than wantonly to invent systems. Of the evidence, which to us has appeared
convincing, the public will judge: of the rectitude of our intention in producing it
we are sure, for it is only to incite public reward, to encourage study, and labour,
and industry.
[e] Exegi monumentum ære perennius. Horatii Carmi. Lib. iii. Ode 30.
[f] Præter laudem nullius avaris. Horatius De Arte Poetica.
[g]
- - - - - - artes
Intulit agresti Latio. Horatii Epis. Lib. ii. Ep. 1.
[h] Dr. William Hunter and Mr. John Hunter, the late celebrated anatomists of
London.
[i] Dr. George Cleghorn, the late excellent and deservedly famous Professor of
Anatomy in the university of Dublin: a man of whom it can be truly said that the
excellent qualities of his heart were as estimable as his superior professional talents
were conspicuous.
[k] This statue, which forms one of the most valuable possessions in the superb
Borghese collection, is commonly called the fighting Gladiator; but, we apprehend,
very erroneously: as the whole of that admirable figure bespeaks a character greatly
superior to that of those degraded and despised beings, whose mercenary services
contributed to the amusements of the Roman amphitheatre.
[l] Horatius.
[m] 19,375 l.
[n] The Mansion House of London.
[o] The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly recorded. Born of
humble parentage in one of the more distant counties, he had early manifested an
admiration of the Arts, and, being admitted a student of the Royal Academy,
eminently distinguished himself there by his abilities and his industry. Applying
peculiarly to Sculpture, soon after the termination of his studies in the Academy he
exhibited, at its annual Exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivalled
excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed in
competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian art, and which
at the time met with their well-earned applause. But, alas! applause was his only
reward: no wealthy patron took him by the hand, no affluent lover of the Arts
enquired into, or assisted, his circumstances; and his means being very confined,
misery was his portion. He had however the soul of an Artist, and for a length of time
bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy President of
the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid of the Council obtained for
him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a year, to enable him to go to Italy, and
improve himself there: but the unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some
trifling debts, which he was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too
delicately alive to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country
without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits, and on a
frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy dissolution, to the
irreparable injury of the Arts. After his death it was discovered that, for the last two
years of his life, he had resided in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare
market, which he had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for
that time had been only two dry biscuits with a draft of water from the market pump.
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of
California

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

General Editors
R. C. BOYS
University of Michigan
VINTON A. DEARING
University of California, Los Angeles
RALPH COHEN
University of California, Los Angeles
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL
Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Corresponding Secretary:
Mrs. EDNA C. DAVIS,
Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library

THE SOCIETY exists to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile

reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. The editorial
policy of the Society remains unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome
suggestions concerning publications. All income of the Society is devoted to
defraying cost of publication and mailing.
All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada
should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205 West
Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles 18, California. Correspondence concerning
editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. The
membership fee is $3.00 a year for subscribers in the United States and Canada
and 15/- for subscribers in Great Britain and Europe. British and European
subscribers should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.

deco1
Publications for the eighth year [1953-1954]
(At least six items, most of them from the following list, will be reprinted.)

JOHN BAILLIE: An Essay on the Sublime (1747). Introduction by Samuel H.

Monk.
Contemporaries of the Tatler and Spectator. Introduction by Richmond P.
Bond.
John Dart and George Ogle on Chaucer. Introduction by William L.
Alderson.
JOHN T. DESAGULIERS: The Newtonian System of the World the Best Model of
Government (1728). Introduction by Marjorie H. Nicolson.
Sale Catalogue of Mrs. Piozzi's Effects (1816). Introduction by John Butt.
M. C. SARBIEWSKI: The Odes of Casimire (1646). Introduction by Maren-
Sofie Rœstvig.
Selections from Seventeenth-Century Songs. Introduction by Jennifer W.
Angel.
A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (1745). [Probably
by Samuel Johnson]. Introduction by James L. Clifford.

Publications for the first seven years (with the exception of Nos. 1-6, which are
out of print) are available at the rate of $3.00 a year. Prices for individual
numbers may be obtained by writing to the Society.

deco2

T H E A U G U S TA N R E P R I N T S O C I E T Y
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL
LIBRARY
2205 WEST ADAMS BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES 18, CALIFORNIA
Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA.
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

FIRST YEAR (1946-1947)

Numbers 1-6 out of print.

SECOND YEAR (1947-1948)

7. John Gay's The Present State of Wit (1711); and a section on Wit from
The English Theophrastus (1702).
8. Rapin's De Carmine Pastorali, translated by Creech (1684).
9. T. Hanmer's (?) Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet (1736).
10. Corbyn Morris' Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc.
(1744).
11. Thomas Purney's Discourse on the Pastoral (1717).
12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood
Krutch.

THIRD YEAR (1948-1949)

13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), The Theatre (1720).

14. Edward Moore's The Gamester (1753).
15. John Oldmixon's Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712); and
Arthur Mainwaring's The British Academy (1712).
16. Nevil Payne's Fatal Jealousy (1673).
17. Nicholas Rowe's Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare
(1709).
 18. "Of Genius," in The Occasional Paper, Vol. III, No. 10 (1719); and
Aaron Hill's Preface to The Creation (1720).

FOURTH YEAR (1949-1950)

19. Susanna Centlivre's The Busie Body (1709).

20. Lewis Theobold's Preface to The Works of Shakespeare (1734).
21. Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela
(1754).
22. Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two
Rambler papers (1750).
23. John Dryden's His Majesties Declaration Defended (1681).
24. Pierre Nicole's An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which from
Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting
Epigrams, translated by J. V. Cunningham.

FIFTH YEAR (1950-1951)

25. Thomas Baker's The Fine Lady's Airs (1709).

26. Charles Macklin's The Man of the World (1792).
27. Frances Reynolds' An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and
of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, etc. (1785).
28. John Evelyn's An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric
to Charles the Second (1661).
29. Daniel Defoe's A Vindication of the Press (1718).
30. Essays on Taste from John Gilbert Cooper's Letters Concerning Taste,
3rd edition (1757), & John Armstrong's Miscellanies (1770).

SIXTH YEAR (1951-1952)

 31. Thomas Gray's An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751); and
The Eton College Manuscript.
32. Prefaces to Fiction; Georges de Scudéry's Preface to Ibrahim (1674),
etc.
33. Henry Gally's A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings (1725).
34. Thomas Tyers' A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1785).
35. James Boswell, Andrew Erskine, and George Dempster. Critical
Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch
(1763).
36. Joseph Harris's The City Bride (1696).

SEVENTH YEAR (1952-1953)

37. Thomas Morrison's A Pindarick Ode on Painting (1767).

38. John Phillips' A Satyr Against Hypocrites (1655).
39. Thomas Warton's A History of English Poetry.
40. Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry (1708).
41. Bernard Mandeville's "A Letter to Dion" (1732).
42. Prefaces to Four Seventeenth-Century Romances.

Transcriber's Note:

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of
typographical error:
"... joined increased (conveniencies—>) conveniences..."
"... which nothing imperfect (eould—>) would please,..."
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISSERTATION ON
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